November 13, 2006
Wearable technology makes air guitar play for real
Australians love 3 things: beer, sports and parties (and I should know because I live in Australia 
Australian research organisation CSIRO has now developed the next big thing for parties and air guitar contests (yes, these really do exist):an air guitar shirt. The air guitar shirt uses sensors embedded in the shirt to wirelessly transfer the movements of your arms to a computer, which then maps audio samples. CSIRO claims that you don’t have to be a musician or know how to play the guitar to create some decent sounding tunes.
While the above example is certainly great fun it should not be mistaken for merely another party gadget. The air guitar shirt is an excellent example of wearable technology that is actually modelled to support its wearer in performing a task using natural motions, which doesn’t require the wearer to learn how the technology works. I think this is a key element in order for wearable technology to become successful and to be accepted widely by the general public.
Check out the CSIRO site to watch the air guitar videos.